According to a Washington Post article in December 2012, it will be difficult for Democrats to win the majority in 2014, in part because the president's party rarely makes gains during the midterm election.[1]

Partisan breakdown

In 2012, where Barack Obama won re-election by 126 electoral votes, the Republican party maintained their control of the U.S. House winning 234 seats. The Democrats did make some gains, winning 201 seats. This is up from the 193 seats they held prior to the election.

Following the 2012 general election, Democratic candidates held on to nine seats that had a political lean favoring Republicans by 54% or more. This is down from prior to 2010 where Democrats held 32 seats in that same environment. With regards to ticket-splitting, there were 24 districts in which one party's nominee carried the presidential vote and the other party's nominee won the congressional race. All but four of which were won by an incumbent. Of the 435 districts, 241 had a Republican lean and this has parity to the partisan distribution in the 1990s when Democratic candidates were winning in many Republican leaning districts. While Democratic candidates won more than a million votes over Republican candidates in the 2012 general election, most of the votes were clustered around urban areas as opposed being broadly dispersed across the country. There are 47 districts with a partisan divide of 70 percent to 30 percent in favor of Democrats. Only 23 such districts exist on the Republican side. Of the 16 districts where the partisan divide is 80% to 20% or more, Democrats represent 15 of them.[2]

2012 Election summary

In a February 2013 article in the Washington Post, political scientists John Sides and Eric McGhee argued that redistricting was not solely responsible for Republicans maintaining control of the U.S. House in 2012. By comparing the 2012 election to prior elections, the authors maintanied that additional factors like incumbency and the increasingly concentrated nature of Democratic votes in urban areas contributed to the outcome.[3]

Margin of victory analysis

There were a total of 435 seats up for election in 2012. The following table shows the margin of victory for each race winner, which is calculated by examining the percentage difference between the top-two vote getters. If the race was uncontested, the margin of victory is listed as 100%. Some general facts:

30 races (6.9 percent) had a margin of victory of less than 5 percent. Of those 30 races, 18 were Democratic winners while 12 were Republican.

33 races (7.6 percent) had a margin of victory between 5 and 10 percent. Of those 33 races, 15 were Democratic winners while 18 were Republican.

87 races (20 percent) had a margin of victory between 10 and 20 percent. Of those 87 races, 23 were Democratic winners while 64 were Republican.

285 races (65.5 percent) had a margin of victory of greater than 20 percent. Of those 285 races, 145 were Democratic winners while 140 were Republican.

The fewest votes were in Texas' 29th District, with only 95,611 total votes. Incumbent Gene Green (D) faced two third-party candidates in the general election.

The most votes were in Montana, with 479,740 votes cast. Montana has a total population of 998,199 -- which is roughly 250,000 above the average district size in states without single districts. Because Montana has only one district for the whole state, its voters per district is higher than the rest of the country. The average size of each district is 709,000. The second-most votes cast came in Colorado's 2nd District, with 421,580 total votes.

The average margin of victory of all congressional districts was 31.85%, meaning that on average the winner of each race received nearly twice as many votes as the top opponent. Average MOV for Democratic winners was 35.7%, while the average for Republicans was 28.6%.

The average number of votes cast per district was 281,917, yielding an average voter turnout of 39.76%.

Margin of Victory in 2012 United States House of Representatives Elections

NRCC Patriot Program

The NRCC's Patriot Program is the counterpart of the DCCC's Frontline Program and is designed to assist vulnerable incumbents in their re-election bids. The following table lists the current members of the Patriot Program.